Much like our other house, our new home requires a degree in engineering to run properly.  We’ve got four, big, oil tanks in our basement, encased behind a spill-proof enclosure.  Refills happen by big tanker (Dane can’t wait till it’s time!) through a special hole in the wall.  The big, red, intimating, not-out-of-order machine sucks up the oil to heat our house.  We’ve also got solar panels.  There hasn’t been much sun yet, and I’m sure there will be some learning to do here, but for now we are working on learning our big, red, intimating, not-out-of-order machine.

The big pipes behind the big, red, intimating, not-out-of-order machine run piping hot water through-out the house, under the floors to keep our feet and water warm.  There are valves to turn things on & off.  There are switches in each room to turn things up or down.  There are more valves & switches on each floor to direct our warm water traffic. Compared to the rocket controls on the big, red, intimating, not-out-of-order machine, the valves & switches are a piece of cake.  The rocket controls, with their full programming capability for efficient heating based on night, day, out-of-town, summer, winter, outside temperature, are impossible to decipher.  This is a better machine than our old machine.  This is an industrial grade machine.  This machine speaks only German.

We did get a lesson during our hausübergabe with the previous owner.  Dave & I also spent one night staring at the rocket controls.  It was late, we’d been moving all day, and our muscles hurt.  All we wanted was a hot bath to ease the pain.  Unfortunately, our big, red, intimating, not-out-of-order machine had predetermined it was sleeping time.  It was not time to spew out a lot of hot water.  After a good 20 minutes of staring we decided to defer to its wisdom & went to sleep without a hot bath, or shower, and happily saved money instead.